Friday, 02 December 2005

Canal House Architecture

The canals of Amsterdam are lined with charming gabled houses, almost all of which have a winch hook at the top, and many of which deliberately tilt forward toward the street in order to use the winch hook to pull up household goods without crashing against the windows of the house.A law was enacted in the year 1565 which limits the lean to 1:25, to lower the risk of the houses falling over into the streets.Originally, property owners were taxed on how wide their houses were, so they tended to build them very narrow and tall.

In the photograph above, the dark gray house with the burgundy-colored shutters is an example of a Warehouse-Style Spout Gable, and three houses down on the right-hand side of the photograph shows an example of a Bell Gable.

In the photograph below, the prominent house on the left is an example of a Step Gable, while the prominent house on the right is an example of a Simple Triangular Gable.